New South Wales
Country Areas Program
Projects That Really Make a Difference!

Project Title: Real Men Read and Real Women Handle Technology

Type: Moree District Initiative
Coordinator/s: Ms Sandy Ellis
Participating Schools: Yetman PS, Croppa Creek PS, Tulloona PS, North Star PS, Toomelah PS, Garah PS, Bonshaw PS
Attributes Addressed: Self, Self&emdash;Directed Learning, Communication, Global Awareness and Responsibility, Literacy, Technology

Overview:

This initiative seeks to address the specific needs of boys with regard to their perceptions of reading, particularly narrative texts, and the needs of girls with regard to their confident use of technology. Literacy is sometimes perceived as a feminine pursuit and not important in "real work". Technology in the form of computers is very appealing to male students, but few girls have female role models who are completely confident in the new technological literacies. Parents and community members will benefit from access to information about the implications of technology and their children's future.

Anticipated outcomes from this initiative include:

* the improvement in the quality and quantity of written narratives

* students will be able to complete a multimedia presentation. This will vary from school to school and will reflect the previous experience of students as well as being linked to relevant KLA's

* staff will feel confident in their use and knowledge of technology and will be able to support each other across the district

* parents and communities will be conversant with directions in education and technology

Implementation:

A male author and computer trainer will be employed to conduct literacy and technology workshops with staff, parents and students. It is envisaged that the district technology adviser and literacy consultant will also have input into some of the sessions.

Smaller schools will combine to encourage communication and social skills and to promote maximum access to consultants.

A Sunday workshop will be held in Goondiwindi to promote discussion of boys and literacy learning. Also, the author and computer trainer will address the group to maximise their potential in the schools.

During the following week, workshops will be presented in schools. This will involve hands&emdash;on multi&emdash;media training and intensive workshop input in narrative writing. This may or may not be linked, but at the conclusion of the day, staff will be able to determine a class project appropriate to their classroom teaching program to pursue in the following weeks. Schools will be using different programs to develop what is best for the students' competence level.

Followup visits will be made by the computer trainer to support staff and students in the development of these projects, extend student knowledge of more complex programs and to develop homepages with the view to establishing an on&emdash;line community for the schools on the program in 2000.

During this visit, parent/staff workshops will be held. Again the topics of these presentations will be determined to best address the needs of individual communities eg software solutions for families, new literacies and learning. During these workshops student work will be displayed highlighting the writing done with visiting author and also multi&emdash;media programs authored by the students.